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| Photo by Basil James on Unsplash |
Talking to Mickey they whole time, so he knows what's going on, to whatever extent he's currently capable of understanding it, Harry touches his arm, hoping to sense it if Mickey is possessed. He's not possessed, but he has a high fever, and he's affected by something that might be a spell. It's cold, and viscerally unpleasant, and not quite like anything Harry has seen before The physical examination is cut short when Malone tries to bite Harry. He can't quite reach, but when someone tries to fucking bite you, with their actual teeth, you get out of the way.
Harry gets ready to use his sight for a more thorough examination, and and we get a basic explanation of how it works, which is very reasonable since I don't think we saw it at all in the previous book. In addition to the usual "see things as they truly are, memories never fade" we get the detail here that enchantments usually glow, like neon. This sets us up for the revelation that the barbed wire spell...doesn't. It's flat black. On a reread, of course, we can recognize this cold, greasy, lightless magic as the dark energy used by necromancers and vampires, but Harry has never encountered it before. And Malone is in bad shape - not only is he wrapped up in a torture spell, something has taken big bites out of his psyche, making him look, in Harry's Sight, like the survivor of a shark attack. Were circumstances less dire, Harry would back off, regroup, talk to Bob, and return with information, supplies, and a real plan. But he's not willing to leave Malone like this for however many hours that would take. I suspect he's also unwilling to walk back out of the house, past Murphy and Sonia and half of SI, and tell them he's going to leave when he hasn't done anything yet.
Carmichael appears to sense that Harry can See him, and briefly regains enough lucidity to say "hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts," the first words he's used since this started. And damn if that isn't a whole-ass metaphor about trauma and vulnerability and maybe masculinity. The Sight lets you see things as they truly are. What's true about Mickey right now is that he's wounded and in terrible pain. (I note with interest that when someone is suffering, enchanted, or the victim of a psychic attack, the Sight tends to show only that, not any of the other details that a viewing under steady-state conditions might reveal.) Harry can literally see Mickey's suffering. And Mickey can feel it. He feels seen, yeah? That's a thing! It's a thing we say about the experience of another person recognizing and validating an internal state or experience of ours that isn't always obvious to others. Often, it's a condition that makes us feel safe to express feelings about those experiences that we otherwise wouldn't be comfortable sharing. Mickey couldn't say "It hurts, it hurts, it hurts" to his wife, or to Murphy, even though he's close to both of them, knows and trusts them, but he can say it to Harry because Harry, in this moment, makes him feel seen. This is a serious complication to Harry's belief that being a wizard is isolating and "doesn't teach you a whole lot about people". But it's tragically underexplored, because after the events near the end of this very book, Harry has like, no ability to hold space for other people's pain. So we never see him just open up his sight on someone who's currently a problem, or an antagonist, but doesn't have to be, and say "I know. I know. Let's talk about it." And let the truth of that create an opening, a connection that wouldn't otherwise be possible. Not blaming Harry here, to be clear. In his position, I wouldn't take those risks with my heart, or my sanity, either. But oh, if he could.
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| Photo by Duncan Sanchez on Unsplash |
up, but he certainly favors a very direct approach when he's short on prep time. He grabs the wire with his bare hands, and enough of his will to get a hold on the spell, and just pulls. It fights back, tearing at Malone's flesh, searing Harry's hands with cold. As soon as it's properly off Malone, it turns on Harry, plunging one end into his neck. He screams, understandably, and Murphy comes running in. Of course, Harry still has his Sight open, so she looks like an avenging angel, dressed all in white, her gun replaced with a holy sword. This is the first time Harry has turned his Sight on Murphy, and since we're still in the early chapters of the book where everyone gets their First Big Trauma of the series, her seeming does not yet bear the stains or shadows it has accumulated on later viewings. She asks Harry, who as far as she can see is screaming and grappling with empty air, what the hell is going on, and he tells her to open the window. She does it, without question or hesitation, so that's two points she's earned from me this book. Harry throws the wire outside and fuego's it in midair. This is, if I remember right, our first introduction to fire being able to destroy things that aren't strictly physical, but it might have come up in Storm Front?
It takes Harry a minute to pull himself back together after that. He left his Sight open too long, and the lines between the real and unreal are starting to go fuzzy. Between that and the Very Upsetting Thing he just dealt with, it's tempting to just sit there, taking in all the weird, wonderful, brain-scouring things he can see. Just, totally lose his mind. He manages to get his Sight closed, though, and tries to fill Murphy in on what happened to Malone, to the limited extent that Harry understands it himself.
Malone's fever is gone, and he wakes up long enough to ask for Sonia before falling asleep again. Harry says he's going to need rest, and explains about psychic trauma, how an attack like this can do the same kind of damage as losing a loved one, or going through a bad breakup.
Sonia comes up, and Harry and Murphy go out into the hall. There's a little bit of mostly-empty back and forth, banter, filling Murphy in one what little they know about the Nightmare. Murphy asks Harry what he saw when she first came in, why he was staring at her. He refuses to tell her, and I think this is supposed to be early setup for their incredibly slow-burn romance?
Murphy goes to get Harry something to eat, and Harry sits on the stairs, mentally reviewing the facts of the case and gradually getting angrier. That's understandable, up to a point, but I can't help noticing that we just had psychic trauma explained, and that Harry also got hit by the torture spell, even it it wasn't nearly as long or thorough as what Malone experienced. Harry took psychic damage there, and he's compromised for the whole remainder of this book as a result. That's, uh, probably worth keeping in mind as events play out.
Finally feel like I'm getting back into a rhythm with these. Hope the next chapter isn't strictly interstitial. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things!
